James Sirius Potter falls into the comfy, overstuffed chair with a large sigh of contentment, happy to finally be sitting down, warming himself in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room.
It was his thirteenth birthday, and he had spent most of the day with his cousins, eating cake and other sweet treats, and then later in the afternoon racing around the Quidditch Pitch on his brand new broom, the Eclipse. Even his first ride on his dad's Firebolt couldn't compare to the experience of the latest model and its sheer speed and control. On that broom, he felt invincible. He smiled with smug satisfaction, knowing that the Quidditch cup would be Gryffindor's for sure this year.
He flicks a look at the clock on the mantelpiece, noting that it is just past ten. Most of Gryffindor house was in bed already save for a few stragglers such as himself. Just as he considers going to bed, James hears the portrait-hole open and turns to see Teddy walk in, a scrap of parchment held in one hand and a parcel in the other. Teddy grins when he sees him, and James gives him a weary smile back.
'Here,' Teddy says cheerfully, throwing the parcel at him. 'Your dad sent it to me, said you weren't to get it until tonight.' James frowns at him and looks down at the present in his lap. Why wouldn't his father have sent it with the morning post and his racing broom?
Teddy sits down beside him, and James tears at the paper. Out of the parcel fall some parchment, folded up, and a large piece of material. The two boys stare at the items in wonder.
'He didn't,' James says quietly, almost reverent as he lifts up his father's Invisibility Cloak. Teddy picks up the Marauders map, stroking it with an absent smile.
'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,' Teddy says, a triumphant grin forming on his face as the map appears. The two boys, one older, with blue hair and brown eyes, and the other younger, with messy black hair and green eyes, look at each other, mischief already growing in their twinkling eyes.
They spread the map out on the floor.
'Most of the professors are in the dungeons,' James whispers, pointing at the map.
'Something must have happened down there,' Teddy says, scratching his chin thoughtfully. 'There's no one patrolling the castle at all.'
'WWMD,' James says solemnly, though a smile is tugging at the corner of his lips. Teddy nods just as seriously.
'What would the Marauders do? Take advantage of course!' Teddy smirks.
James had grown up hearing tales of the Marauders from his father, and had idolised his grandfather and his daring friends. Every story and adventure related to him was imprinted on his mind, good and bad, and he always did his best to keep their memory alive.
For almost a year now he had been trying to master his animagus transformation, but he still wasn't quite there. Maybe with the help of his fellow Marauder, he would be able to achieve this goal.
'We need a third.' Not a fourth though. James didn't want to risk another Peter Pettigrew incident.
'What about one of the Weasleys?' Teddy responded.
James frowned, considering his cousins. There were quite a few of them at the castle now, mostly in Gryffindor. Most of them were loud and boisterous, and incapable of keeping a secret. Then realisation dawned on his face.
'Fred,' he hissed. Teddy grinned at James. It was perfect. The son of George Weasley, an honourary Marauder, joining the new generation of Marauders. He was younger than James, a second year Gryffindor, but he was perfect for the job, a true prankster like his namesake.
They crept up the stairs to the boys dormitories, creeping into the second year's room. Four snoring youths lay in their beds as they sidled over to the bed of their cousin. James put his hand over Fred's mouth, while Teddy whispered in the redhead's ear to wake up.
Fred awoke and struggled, until his eyes focussed on Teddy's smiling face. He sat up slowly, looking from Teddy to James with confusion. James held up the cloak and map, and Fred's eyes widened in shock. The two boys stepped back as Fred scrambled for his clothes.
It was difficult to fit all three of them under the cloak, particularly because Teddy had grown quite tall. Their feet were almost certainly visible as they shuffled through the portrait of the Fat Lady and down the staircase of Gryffindor Tower.
Their first order of business was nicknames.
'They have to be good,' Fred hissed, as they explored a room on the fourth floor.
'The originals chose nicknames based on their animagus transformations,' Teddy said.
'None of us are able to transform though,' James pointed out, rolling his eyes at Teddy from where he stood examining the space behind a large tapestry. It depicted a swooning maiden in the arms of a rather gruff looking knight. Teddy made kissing noises at James, who snorted his derision.
'Yours could be something about being a Metamorphmagus,' James suggested.
'I already picked mine out years ago,' Teddy confessed. 'It's derived from my mum's last name, everyone called her Tonks because she hated her first name, so I thought I'd put my own spin on it.'
'And?' Fred demanded from the other side of the room.
'Well originally I chose Monks, a combination of Moony and Tonks, but I think just Monk.'
'Cool,' James said, impressed.
'Monkey,' Fred sniggered.
'Shut it,' Teddy whispered threateningly. 'It's Monk.' Fred put his hands over his mouth, but the sniggers came out anyway.
James rolled his eyes again. Sometimes Fred acted younger than his twelve years and it could be very irritating.
'What's yours then?' Teddy asked Fred, trying not to ignore his cousin's laughter.
'Mine's easy,' Fred said. 'My Dad said him and his twin called each other Gred and Forge.' He paused, smiling sadly now as he thought of the wistful look that had been on his father's face when he finally began telling him stories of his twin. 'I like Forge.'
'Monk and Forge,' Teddy said with a smile. He turned to James, 'and what about you, Jamie? Got a good nickname thought out?'
James frowned. He was named after two of the Marauders, Prongs and Padfoot; perhaps he could combine their nicknames? He wracked his brain, trying to think of something. Prodfoot? Pangs? All the combinations sounded stupid. What was halfway between a dog and a stag?
He thought instead of his parents. His dad's patronus had been a stag, like the animagus form of his father. His mother's was a horse. Clearly his family had a thing with large, four-legged creatures. Maybe Pegasus? Although that sounded sort of girly.
No, he needed something all his own. James looked up at the knight. His fellow Marauders had nicknames that seemed to pay tribute to the medieval times. Knight wouldn't be such a terrible nickname; it was actually sort of cool.
'What do you think of Knight?' He asked tentatively. Teddy picked up on the theme immediately.
'So medieval nicknames for all three of us?' He asked, looking at the two other boys.
'It's pretty badass,' Fred nodded.
They wrote their new nicknames on the Marauders Map; Monk, Forge, and Knight.
Next they needed to find a good hideout. Obvious places like the Shrieking Shack were out. They needed a new place, one never discovered before by their predecessors.
'The map only shows the places the Marauders discovered,' Teddy whispered, pointing out the secret passages.
'True,' Fred agreed, 'that's why the Room of Requirement never appeared on the map. The Marauders didn't know about it.' The Room was destroyed during the Second War of Voldemort by Crabbe and wasn't an option regardless.
'Maybe we could add to the map,' James suggested. 'We could look for places where rooms aren't spaced apart correctly, and on floors where no hiding places or corridors have been discovered yet. If we look over each room really carefully, we might find something.'
And so their escapades of the first month were of an investigative sort. Night after night they ventured out for a few hours, measuring rooms and hallways and even watching the stairs to see if a particular pattern opened a secret door.
These observations only lead to them discovering the way to alter the staircases movements, which was a secret panel at the very top of the highest staircase. Still, they conceded that this discovery could prove useful in the future.
In the end, the most important discovery was made by James. As he was sitting in the library pretending to do his Charms homework, he stared blankly at a display of precious older tomes, rarely handled anymore. Amongst them was the very first issue of Hogwarts: A History, and James had strolled over and picked it up.
Opening to a random page, he immediately noticed how different it was to the most recent version. To prove this, he picked out the most recent version, and one from the middle that was about fifty years old now. He opened all three to the map of Hogwarts.
The most recent version contained only the bare bones of the castle.
The middle version had much more detail, and contained many disused classrooms, and a few of the secret passages contained in the Marauders Map. The Marauders most probably would have copied the castle's layout from this version, or one quite similar to it.
But the original version contained every nook and cranny of the castle, from the very bottom to the top and all of Hogwarts grounds that surrounded it. James could barely believe his eyes. Looking from the first version to the latest one, you could barely recognise them as the same castle.
The librarian had given him a suspicious look when he claimed he wanted to borrow the very first copy of Hogwarts: A History but she had eventually relented, warning him that any damage to the tome would be reported to the Headmaster and his parents. Slightly cowed, he had taken the book nonetheless. It was a goldmine!
That night he showed Teddy and Fred his discovery, and they had set out almost immediately to prove that there was indeed a secret room above the fireplace in the Gryffindor Common Room. Some time later, completed covered in dust and stinking of smoke, they had discovered it behind a painting of a roaring lion, and it had been filled with hidden treasures from Gryffindors hundreds of years ago, when the secret rooms had not been so secret.
The three of them had looked at each other in awe, feeling a rush of exhilaration come over them. It was as if the whole castle belonged solely to them now; it was their playground.
Painstakingly, they copied the new information onto the Marauders Map. It took them many late nights, and James struggled to stay awake in his classes as the lack of sleep began to take its toll.
When they finally finished it one Saturday morning a few weeks later, the three of them stored the map safely and slept the entire weekend through, completely exhausted.
James returned the book, assuring the librarian of its wellbeing, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Hopefully no one else would find the book and the map it contained particularly interesting. He had been careful to keep it hidden from others in case they remarked upon him having it, going so far to even change the cover while it was in his possession. It was the Marauders' secret, it belonged to them alone.
After that, they were untouchable. They explored hidden room after hidden room, walked every secret passage of the castle to discover where they led (one of them, inexplicably, led to the middle of the lake), and soon grew to know every sconce of Hogwarts.
One surprising discovery was the relocation of the Room of Requirement, which had proven to be somewhat more indestructible than originally thought. Apparently the castle could take care of itself.
James looked around in wonder, finding the objects that his father had told him about. Even the vanishing cupboard was still there, though its twin had been long destroyed by the Ministry (just in case).
Standing in this room made him feel closer to his father than he had ever been before. There were scorch marks on the floor and walls, and James pictured him running in terror, fearing for his life before finding the brooms that had saved the lives of five out of the six children that had fought inside it.
Fred ran from pile to pile, picking up one thing and exclaiming over it, before spotting another thing and then another and another. He left a trail of treasures behind him, and James smiled at the eagerness of his younger cousin. He could understand it; some of the objects in this room could be over a thousand years old.
Teddy wandered around, a thoughtful look on his face, soon disappearing behind piles of forgotten objects.
James realised then that the meaning behind the Marauders had changed with them. It wasn't about nasty pranks and sneaking around risking their lives. It was about discovery and wonder, about bonds, about the past and about the future.
He, Teddy and Fred were the new Marauders, and they would leave their mark on Hogwarts.